In light of recent heightened security concerns, airlines are required to check passengers against government supplied watch lists. However, the watch list program has numerous challenges. One such issue is the fact that not all watch lists are released to the airlines for security concerns, so screening is often less than desirable. In particular, numerous employees throughout the airline industry have access to the watch lists, which creates a potential security leak.
Additionally, coordinating and synchronizing updates to each airline each day is a challenging task given the current technology infrastructure in the airline industry. Current systems were designed many years ago and cannot be easily modified to accommodate the ability to effectively cross reference passengers against watch lists. The result is an inconsistent implementation of watch list checks among the different airlines and airports, because each is responsible for implementing their own solution.
One proposed solution is that the airlines will supply passenger information to the government, and the government will be responsible for checking the passengers against watch lists. However, this solution is flawed for several reasons. Most airline reservation systems collect only minimal information about travelers, i.e., a name, a seat assignment, etc. However, in order to effectively screen passengers, additional information is required, such as a first, middle and last name, date of birth, address, etc. Current systems were not designed to accommodate this information. Performing a major overhaul of the reservation system would be both expensive and time consuming. Moreover, people are skeptical of giving the government personal data and travel plans of all citizens.
The lack of an effective approach to handling watch lists can thus lead to situations where individuals are misidentified as being on a watch list, passenger delays, security concerns, and escalating costs. Accordingly, a need exists to address the above issues.